The Renewal of the Order redone 2018

PREFACE This collection of documents has extraordinary value. Assembling it required a great deal of research, effort, and time. The resulting book is the best reward for those who have toiled on it. Indeed, what can give greater satisfaction than preparing a good book? This one, although “just” a collection of documents, is an exceptional volume. The documents collected herein allow us to reconstruct with great accuracy a single but highly dramatic historical moment: the death throes of the Order and its resuscitation when it appeared that nothing could save it from death. The monastic orders were sentenced to death by a czar’s executive order because of their participation in the 1863 uprising. Some dis- persed completely, and the monks who were not exiled merged with the lay clergy to the point that for a long time those orders actually ceased to exist in territories subject to Russia. A similar fate seemed destined for the Marians. They were reduced to a single monastery without the right to accept new members, meaning a gradual aging and dying off of the community. It was the specter of the end. The last monk asks a question in one of his letters: “Is there even a spark of hope left or should I let go and prepare two coffins, one for myself and one for the Order?” This decline lasted for almost 50 years! But then a complex rescue operation begins for the Marians. The last inhabitant of the huge and deteriorating cloister in Mariampole, old and ailing Fr. Wincenty Sekowski, met two people, priests Matulewicz and Buczys, Lithuanians with Polish ties, who would not allow the Order to die. It was their idea. Everything was carried out legally despite the repressive czarist legislation. They were all taking risks: the two priests, their bishops, and Father Sekowski. If it had been revealed publicly, all would have been lost. Neither was it